Can't play video files via Samba on Kubuntu.

[truenaspolya]

I have TrueNas 12.0-U3 and I have an SMB share to access my files on my local network. Everything works well, but when I try to play video files with VLC, things get weird:

• Windows 10: Everything works fine, VLC plays instantly.
• Kubuntu 10: Everytime (!) I open a video, VLC prompts for username and password. After logging in it plays instantly.
• Kubuntu 12: VLC downloads the file to the PCs cache and plays it from there. It doesn't prompt for login.

What is going on? I also have access to a Netgear ReadyNas (with only SMB turned on) and all of these OSes play videos instantly without a problem.
Did I missed some important TrueNas configuration or is this a Kubuntu bug? How am I supposed to debug this?

 

[truenaspolya]

I tried to follow the suggestions over here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/24769/play-video-files-in-a-local-lan-folder-with-kde
I downloaded Nautilus and on Kubuntu 12 it asks for username and password like Dolphin on Kubuntu 10, but in this case it saves the credentials to a keyring so it doesn't asks for it on every file open and it plays the videos instantly.
I also tried setting SMB credentials for VLC but it still downloads to the cache. I would be ok with the keyring solution Nautilus has if Dolphin di, but even in that case I can't understand why this isn't as out-of-the box as ReadyNas was.

 

[winnielinnie]

Kubuntu 12? As in released in 2012? Is there a reason you cannot use a more recent version?

Did you try mounting the share(s) with Smb4k, rather than directly through Dolphin or Nautilus (via KIOfuse and GVFS respectively?)

 

[truenaspolya]

Oh man, I don't know what happened in my mind. I meant to write Kubuntu 20 instead of 12 and Kubuntu 18 instead of 10.

 

[winnielinnie]

I thought you were enoying some vintage Linux!

Did you install and try it again using Smb4k? The package in the official repositories is: smb4k

Unfortunately, due to Ubuntu's version freeze policy for its packages in the main repos, you'll be stuck with smb4k 3.0.4, even though there've been a few good updates to the software since then.

One way around this is to use the KDE Neon repository for the latest KDE packages and software.

 

[truenaspolya]

I installed it on 2 PC and both of them threw this error message when I started the app or tried to scan the network:
"The network communication failed with the following error message: The URL does not exist"

I tried to mount through the mount dialog but that gives an error as well:
"the URL that was passed is invalid"

I searched these messages and tried a few recommendations but none of them worked.

 

[winnielinnie]

What are you entering in the location when you try to mount it?

It should look something like this assuming this is the IP address of your TrueNAS server:
192.168.1.200/sharename

 

[truenaspolya]

Dude! Thank You sooo much! This works like a charm. It mounts the whole share and it works like if it was on my local PC.
I misunderstood the location part. I thought I had to enter only the share name then enter the IP address to the IP Address field. Turns out I only have to fill in the location field just like you suggested: 192.168.1.200/sharename, then I just login and boom it works!

Thanks for sticking with me till the end. I'm so grateful! I didn't had high hopes about posting in a forum as a noname guy with such a specific problem especially after researching and seeing the results. I almost gave up and accepted that this is how things will work from now on. This was the final thing on my list. My ReadyNas got bricked from a lightning strike and I needed something more modular. The whole thing took so much time with the hardware stuff, installing, datasets, share configuration and now its finally done! Thank you again, I'm so happy!

 

[winnielinnie]

Happy to hear!

Be sure to make "bookmarks" of frequently used shares for easier drop-down access. You can also look into using Kwallet to save your credentials (or use the older method if no one else uses your PC, so that you can spare yourself from having to type in the password every time.)

There's options to auto-unmount upon logging out of KDE or exiting Smb4k (which I recommend.)

There's a ton of options, but don't overwhelm yourself. Keep it simple and practical.

Smb4k bypasses KIO-fuse and GVFS, so you should also be getting better speeds too. Honestly, I wish there was an Smb4k for Windows!

 

[truenaspolya]

Good to know! I'm going to check out the settings. Thanks again!